March 28, 2024
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Port Clyde memorial dedicated in honor of fishermen lost at sea

PORT CLYDE – Next to the Marshall Point Lighthouse, overlooking the Gulf of Maine, stands a new black granite memorial dedicated to local fishermen who have died at sea.

Friends, relatives and neighbors of the fishermen whose names appear on the 5-foot-high tablet gathered in the rain Saturday at a ceremony to dedicate the monument, known as the St. George Fishermen Memorial.

The ceremony represented more than three years of effort in the community to plan and make the memorial, St. George Harbor Master David Schmanska said Tuesday.

“The idea started with the death of a local fisherman, Gary Thorbjornson, who was lost at sea in 2005,” Schmanska said. “His family looked into the possibility of a memorial, and the logical place for it was at Marshall Point.”

Through the efforts of a great many people in the community, enough money was raised to erect a memorial, he said.

“Every fishing village goes through this sort of thing,” Schmanska said of the lost fishermen.

A portrait of Thorbjornson standing at the helm of his boat is engraved on the face of the monument. Under the portrait is the inscription, “Dedicated to all commercial fishermen from the town of St. George who lost their lives at sea.”

The names of 11 local fishermen, with the years of their births and the dates of their deaths, are etched on the back of the monument.

The oldest is John Field, who was born in 1887 and died in 1941. The most recent are James A. Weaver, 1962-2006, and Michael F. Lord, 1960-2006.

Thorbjornson’s dates are 1963-2005.

Other names on the monument are Robert J. Powell, 1925-1973; Eugene L. Bray, 1945-1977; Richard J. Waldron, 1957-1977; Maurice Simmons, 1911-1950; Kendall Hawkins, 1925-1957; Michael W. Percy, 1952-1975; and Jud V. Miller, 1953-1975.

Under the names is inscribed the message, “This memorial was made possible by the many contributions in memory of Gary Thorbjornson and fellow fishermen.”

gchappell@bangordailynews.net

236-4598


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